[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 109-110]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, under the direction of our new majority 
leader, the Senator from Kentucky, we have been entrusted with a great 
opportunity to lead this new Congress--the 114th Congress--and it is a 
great honor. Maybe people assume that to be the case, but it is always 
a good idea to express it out loud and to say how grateful we are for 
the opportunity to be able to lead the 114th Congress and serve in the 
majority in the Senate.
  It is also important to say we approach this opportunity with great 
humility--not just with humility but with also a determination and a 
commitment to address the top priorities of the American people. If 
there is one issue I heard about from my constituents in Texas during 
my reelection campaign, which concluded on November 4, it is: Why can't 
you guys and gals get things done? How come you can't address the 
problems that confront the American people? By and large, at the top of 
that list were jobs and stagnant wages, part-time work when people want 
to work full-time. They were kitchen table, bread-and-butter sorts of 
issues.
  Now we have an opportunity starting this week to address one of those 
priorities, which is creating jobs with the approval of the Keystone XL 
Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline is important for a lot of reasons, 
one of which is job creation. It obviously transports oil from Canada 
through the United States, bypassing the delivery of this oil in 
railcars, which has been the subject of some news reports when some of 
them have gone off-rail and created some accidents. The oil ends up in 
Southeast Texas, where we have a lot of refineries which create a lot 
of jobs but where that crude oil will then be refined into gasoline and 
jet fuel and other refined products.
  This is also important because this is a supply of oil from a 
friendly neighbor, Canada--one of our closest allies--and reduces our 
dependence on oil from parts of the world that aren't quite as stable 
certainly as Canada is. So it is important from a jobs perspective. It 
is important from a geopolitical perspective and a national security 
perspective as well.
  I went back and looked and noted that the President actually formed a 
Jobs Council during his first term in office. The job of the members of 
the council was to put their heads together and provide strategic 
advice on ways to boost the economy. This is the President's Jobs 
Council that he created during the first term of his Presidency. The 
group's main homework assignment was to produce this framework for job 
creation and enhance national competitiveness. In fact, they produced 
something entitled ``Road Map to Renewal.'' I haven't Googled that or 
Binged it or put it in a search engine, but I bet if anybody who 
happens to be listening is interested, they could type that into a 
search engine on the Internet--the ``Road Map to Renewal''--and find 
out all they want to know about it. It includes a number of specific 
and practical recommendations for action.
  One of those recommendations to the President was to ``optimize all 
of the nation's natural resources and construct pathways (pipelines, 
transmission and distribution) to deliver electricity and fuel.''
  That would seem to be right in the wheelhouse of the Keystone XL 
Pipeline.
  The report added that regulatory and ``permitting obstacles that 
could threaten the development of some energy projects, negatively 
impact jobs and weaken our energy infrastructure need to be 
addressed.'' So the President's own Jobs Council recognized that the 
key to America's energy security is to focus on America's energy 
development, including the transmission lines and pipelines by which 
this natural resource is transported.
  I know perhaps coming from an energy State such as Texas we are 
perhaps a lot more familiar with the pipelines and the oil and gas 
industry because it creates so many jobs and so much prosperity in my 
State, but some people are a little apprehensive about the idea of a 
pipeline going under the ground. I invite them to again type into their 
favorite search engine on the Internet ``oil and gas pipelines'' and 
look at the map that pops up. It is astonishing how many existing 
pipelines exist in the United States today. I bet 98 percent of 
Americans don't even know they exist. Maybe that is too high; maybe it 
is 95 percent. So this is a safe and efficient and effective way of 
transporting these natural resources all around the United States. 
Obviously, if they are transported by pipeline, they don't have to be 
transported by railcar, including through some populated parts of our 
country, and subjected to some of the accidents we have read and heard 
so much about. These underground pipelines are a fairly common reality 
in our country, which leads me to be absolutely mystified at the 
resistance from some on the other side of the aisle and in the White 
House to doing what should be in our self-interests, which should be 
something that addresses one of the most important things the American 
people care about, which is jobs, and the other thing they care an 
awful lot about, which is security and reducing our dependence on 
imported energy from the Middle East.
  That was 3 years ago last month that the President's Jobs Council 
made this recommendation. Then there is last month, when the President 
said this: ``I'm being absolutely sincere when I say I want to work 
with this new Congress to get things done.''
  Hearing that was like music to my ears and I think to a lot of 
people, to have the President say he wants to work with the Congress, 
even though Republicans won the majority in the House and in the 
Senate. So imagine my confusion and the confusion on the part of so 
many Americans when yesterday the White House Press Secretary said the 
President would veto any legislative approval of the Keystone XL 
Pipeline.
  Think about the timing of that statement. We had an election on 
November 4, we had the new Congress sworn in yesterday, the President 
said a month ago he wanted to work with the Congress, and then the 
first day of the Congress, before the legislation was even filed much 
less voted out of committee and brought to the floor, the President 
said: If you pass that, I am going to veto it. I am probably not the 
only one who is confused by the contradiction.
  We know this pipeline would produce thousands of well-paying jobs and 
would enhance the supply of energy from a close ally and neighbor, as I 
said earlier.
  So the President issued a veto threat on the day the new Congress was 
sworn in, and it is clear to me that notwithstanding the President's 
previous

[[Page 110]]

statements, he is either confused or he has changed his mind about 
cooperating with the Congress. I hope he meant what he said when he 
said he would work with us to try to address the concerns of middle-
class families when it comes to jobs and help grow the economy and help 
America prosper. But I am here to say that Republicans who now have the 
honor and responsibility of serving as the majority in the Senate and 
in the House did listen. We heard the message delivered to us by the 
voters on November 4. We know they don't want more bickering. They 
don't want more dysfunction. The American people, including my 
constituents in Texas, want results. They want jobs. They want full-
time, not just part-time work, and they want the security that would 
come with legislation such as this that we are considering today.
  That is why this week our new majority leader, the senior Senator 
from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, has decided we will take up this energy 
project as job No. 1. This is bipartisan legislation. I was watching TV 
this morning, I think with the Presiding Officer, and we were together 
and saw that Senator Manchin from West Virginia and Senator Hoeven from 
North Dakota were appearing on a morning TV show talking about the 
importance of this legislation, and they estimate they have as many as 
63 votes in the Senate, which by definition is a bipartisan majority, 
to pass this legislation.
  This place can be pretty confusing at different times, and I am 
perplexed why the same President who said he wants to work with us is 
issuing premature veto threats, even though there is a bipartisan 
majority for this legislation.
  Again, the President said he is for an ``all of the above'' approach 
to take care of our energy future. If that is true, then this should be 
a part of that approach. He has acknowledged the important connection 
between job growth and energy development. If there is a poster child 
for the role that the energy sector can play in growing the economy, it 
is my State. Texas is a State where we are quite familiar with the oil 
and gas industry. We are not just sold on oil and gas because we do 
produce the most electricity from wind turbine of anywhere in the 
country. We are truly an ``all of the above'' State. But after years of 
anemic economic growth and the lowest workforce participation in four 
decades, does the President of the United States think this is an 
inconsequential piece of legislation? Why does he not work with us as 
opposed to remaining an obstruction to real progress the American 
people are crying out for?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

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